The Mysteries Go On
by kajamiku
Summary: A kindof sequel to 'A Mystery Unsolved'. It's Renji's turn to work out the mysteries. Yaoi. UxIxR


**Title: **The Mysteries Go On  
**Author: **kajamiku  
**Disclaimer: **The plot and smut is mine but nothing else... isn't that always the way?  
**Fandom: **Bleach  
**Pairing: **Urahara x Ichigo x Renji  
**Rating:** M  
**Summary/Notes: **As you can probably tell, this fic follows on from the previous fic (A Mystery Unsolved) I wrote for makaikitty, but you don't have to have read the other one to read this. And yeah, so I kinda set it during the fillers, and I apologise for that, but hey, I'm nothing if not an opportunist.  
It's Renji's turn to work out the mysteries.

* * *

**The Mysteries Go On**

Abarai Renji had been staying in Urahara's shop for some time now. Despite his frequent comings and goings, the duty that drew him out into the city and the promise of food – only one portion or not – that brought him back, he liked to think he had at least a small handle on the things that happened around him.

This foolish idea was put completely asunder the moment that he noticed something very interesting about one of the guests that visited more regularly than was probably normal. The fact that the realisation was interesting stopped Renji from being too annoyed at being wrong, and the fact that Ichigo was involved sent annoyance tumbling into raging curiosity.

It wasn't that he was nosy per say, just that everything had been quiet for a while and he was incurably and notoriously bored. The mental guest list he kept while he was around the shop was simply a way to keep himself entertained, that he now knew some rather worrying or amusing secrets about the visitors or those he lived with was just a bonus. All things considered Renji thought he'd taken the boredom very well, not like Ikkaku (whose building of matchstick houses had become legendary in the 11th Squad) or Vice-Captain Matsumoto (who gathered whoever was nearest and drank herself into a stupor) or even Captain Mayuri (who found the nearest experiment and… well, best not to think about that at all really).

The problem was now not boredom at all, but more a chance to satisfy his curiosity sufficiently and find out why it was that Ichigo visited the Urahara shop so much and why everyone else seemed to turn a blind eye to it.

He had seen Tessai purposely turn his back to the door when he sensed Ichigo nearby, pretending he was absorbed in whatever task he decided to fake needing to be done, when it was plainly obvious with every try he made that it didn't. Even Jinta and Ururu didn't say anything unless it was Shinigami-Ichigo who turned up, giving them the hint that it wasn't a secret visit, but a normal business one. The amount of secrecy involved in whatever Ichigo did during his visits – which Renji had already ascertained to be of varying length, sometimes just a few hours, sometimes overnight – made for a very alluring secret.

Over time Renji had tried to find patterns in the behaviour, such as the amounts of time he spent there and how often he visited, but it had been astoundingly difficult to do. It looked like he just came over whenever he felt like it. But to do what? It had to be something he did voluntarily, otherwise why would it be so often? But, Renji reasoned, it could be against his will if the fact that he came often was a part of the deal.

Renji puzzled over the issue for a long time. He began to slyly try and draw information from Ichigo whenever they fought together, but this was a bust because the Vice-Captain could never find a legitimate and non-suspicious way to ask about it. He even tried asking Rukia, but the girl had just given him a long and withering stare before shaking her head and telling him to drop it. Everyone he asked was maddeningly unhelpful and the whole thing was beginning to get frustrating.

The only information he had on the visitations was, if he was honest, sketchy and mostly consisted of speculation and records, none of which were any help at all. Nothing anyone else did was as interesting as this one scandal – and Renji was sure it was a scandal, it couldn't be something normal because he'd spent too much god damn time on it – and eventually most of his other observations became little spur of the moment thoughts like; _ah, there's Jinta going around the back. He must be feeding that abandoned puppy again, I have to remember to blackmail the brat with that later…_ and; _oh god, that woman who has the hots for Tessai's back. I hope she doesn't start squealing when he talks to her again…_

None of it seemed overly interesting anymore.

At first Renji assumed Ichigo was using the basement to train in, which was perfectly understandable since there were very few places real Shinigami training could be done (especially mass destructive training like Ichigo's) and the room was a good place to avoid being interrupted. However, not long after first thinking and dismissing this, Renji decided to follow the kid in and train with him. The moment he was standing down there he knew that Ichigo wasn't training, whether he was here or not, because it was completely silent. He'd walked around a little to make sure and was positive that wherever Ichigo had gone, it wasn't down there.

It took time for him to build up the small amounts of information that he did have; he knew that Ichigo went somewhere in the back rooms, where he wasn't allowed to go, because that was the only place Renji couldn't and didn't search when Ichigo disappeared. If not for Tessai he would have stalked the boy to find out where exactly he went, but Tessai was a good deal bigger than he was… and he was also the one who served out the food at meal times so… best to stay on his good side really.

Renji also knew that Ichigo never turned up for these visitations in Shinigami form, giving an even deeper impression that he wasn't there to train, and that his face was often partially lacking its usual scowl. In fact, Renji could have sworn the boy was having a good deal of difficulty keeping his usual expression in place, fighting a smile as it were. This furthered Renji's curiosity to an almost painful extreme.

So Renji loitered around the store as much as possible, listening into the conversations he could catch whenever the substitute Shinigami's name was mentioned, and paying due care and attention to every visit that Ichigo made. He got so desperate, in fact, that he was caught following the orange-haired boy twice and had to think up suitable excuses for being a fixated stalker, knowing every time he spoke them that they were about as believable as Zaraki Kenpachi deciding to give up fighting for ballet and prancing around Soul Society in a bright pink tutu.

It was a warm, lazy afternoon that he finally had the opportunity to witness for himself exactly why it was that Ichigo visited the shop so often.

With so much quiet and heat building up around him, it didn't take much for Renji to realise that he was bored and had a lot of excess energy to burn. No one had visited the shop that day so far, not one person, and without Jinta to bug him and Tessai locked in one of the storerooms cleaning, he was stuck with finding something solitary to occupy the hours. It took an embarrassingly long time for him to think of the solution to his problem: Training.

Training would wear him out, would stop him going mad with the silence, would keep him from thinking too much, and would make him stronger, with the added bonus that he wouldn't be around the shop if a customer appeared and therefore couldn't be blamed if they were neglected. There wasn't a con in sight, as far as he was concerned.

Renji had always secretly loved that underground chamber. He loved the earthy air down there, the enduring cool and the warm dirt beneath his feet. He liked the construction of it, like an island contained within a building, a melding of human and nature. He also liked that constant tang he could taste on his tongue, the metallic sensation of reiatsu rolling around the landscape, lingering in the room whether there were people down there or not. It was comforting, if nothing else, and reminded him of Soul Society in a way that nowhere else in this place could. Not that he would ever tell anyone that, of course. It had nothing to do with them.

However, there was a slightly foreboding air to the chamber this time, or perhaps it was an intuitive thought of his own, he couldn't really tell, but it made him doubt his decision for a moment, made him wonder whether training was the best thing to do. It was warmer than usual, he noted, and there was a scent there that he couldn't identify. It was a familiar smell, something that taunted his senses and made him frown in annoyance at knowing but not being able to remember such a distinctive scent.

It was not the smell that dissuaded him, not at all, it was simply the curdling of the air, that pressure that sent a shiver along his spine even though he didn't understand why.

Slowly, Renji took a step further into the chamber, wary of any kind of danger that might be causing his instincts to blare warnings that rang so painfully in his ears, and allowed his eyes to sweep as much of the place that he could see. For once he wished the land was flat, so that he could see everything instead of being chary of the unknown. He disliked this caution, resolutely pushed it further from his mind, taking to a slow jog as he moved further in, and sought out the familiar reiatsu that he could sense somewhere. The foreboding feeling returned with a vengeance, cutting off his impatience as he halted in step and slowly turned his head towards the energy.

One of them was Ichigo's.

Long-lived curiosity warred with caution as he steadily strode towards the rock 'screen', trying to remember what was in this corner.

The hot spring. Renji stopped moving immediately, realising what a mistake he'd just made. More a miscalculation if he thought of it logically, but logic was taking a trip to Hawaii right then and Renji could do nothing but gape in both embarrassment and arousal at the sight that greeted him.

Against one side of the hot spring, only ten feet from where Renji was standing, Ichigo was lying back, one arm resting on the edge, the hand digging with some insistence into the dirt. He was completely and unbelievably naked, his head was thrown back, his eyes closed, lips parted as he tried to regain control of his already ragged breathing. Hot water and arousal had tinged his flesh with colour, and his hair was wet and plastered to his skin, the occasional groans and moaning that escaped him made Renji's hand twitch.

In front of Ichigo, pressed completely against the boy, was an equally naked Urahara, the blonde head ducked beneath teen's chin and moving in a way that made Renji's face heat up. The hot spring water rolled around them, steady waves lapping quietly at the sides, moving with the obvious, slow, deliberate hip movements the shop manager was making while his mouth was otherwise occupied. Ichigo's other hand was gripping at Urahara's hair, and not loosely at that, but as mortified and utterly embarrassed as Renji was, he could see quite clearly that the blonde didn't mind in the slightest.

There was a laziness to it, to their movements, to Urahara's deliberate thrusting and the way Ichigo's body automatically moved with him, to meet him, and it was those unhurried and languid movements that made Renji realise that he had, after all this time, finally discovered why it was that Ichigo visited the shop so much. He tried to tell himself that he had wanted to know, but not to see something like this, but he was far too aroused by it for that to be true.

No matter how he looked at it, his curiosity had wanted an eye-witness account of the 'scandal' and he bloody well had one now, whether he liked it or not. He wondered vaguely whether anyone else had caught them at it, he could tell they weren't exactly subtle from this display alone.

Urahara suddenly snapped his hips up, causing Ichigo to half jump in the water, sending wild waves tossing and crashing across the hot spring, as he made a sound so wholly guttural and hot, it went straight to Renji's groin. The red-head almost took a clumsy step backwards, his fists clenching as he realised that he was far hotter now than he had been before. The quiet, stuffy fly-ridden room upstairs knew nothing of this heat.

It was in this moment, when Renji's foot made a very slight and almost noiseless movement against the earth, that Urahara Kisuke lifted his head and stared over his lover directly at him. Renji was frozen in place, his embarrassment knowing no bounds.

The cease in movement made Ichigo's brown eyes open as well and he tilted his head back in confusion, obviously trying to find out what had stopped him. His skin had been tinged pink before, but now Renji felt sure he was as red as he himself was. Only Urahara seemed to be keeping his composure, he didn't move when Ichigo started to struggle to get away, keeping the boy in place with apparent ease until he stopped wriggling and settled for frowning in worry and humiliation as he looked from the blonde to Renji a few more times.

Urahara slowly smiled, an indulgent and patient curving of his lips, like he was preparing to deal with schoolchildren with many naïve questions that he needed to answer carefully. A few moments passed in silence as Renji stood there, feeling increasingly more uncomfortable while the blonde waited for a clear reaction.

When nothing happened after a couple of minutes Urahara clucked his tongue in something like disapproval, but his smile didn't drop. "Oh dear, I suppose this is my fault, doing something like this here, where anyone could see us, I am sorry." He didn't look it. "If you feel uncomfortable," _Enormous understatement_, Renji thought, irritation licking ever so slightly at the other emotions boiling beneath his skin, "you may leave and we won't speak of this outside. However, if you would like…"

Renji watched the blonde man give a suggestive smile so horrifyingly seductive that it took a lot of self control for the Shinigami not to simply allow himself to give in and leap into the hot spring with the pair. It was the way that Ichigo's head snapped towards Urahara in shock and evident anger that gave him the self control he needed to do what he had been screaming at himself to do ever since he found the hot spring.

He turned and ran.

He did something he had never condoned with himself because it gave impressions of weakness and fear, things he didn't allow himself to show in order to keep his pride intact. But this wasn't battle, this was something less familiar, something far more intimidating. There was too much he didn't know about this. He was too confused. What's more, there was pride at stake, and pride was too important to him to just take a chance at losing it like that.

He knew that Urahara's suggestion had not been discussed with Ichigo from the expression that formed when the manager said it, he couldn't know whether it was really _meant_ at all in fact. It was too much of a shock really, everything had happened and he hadn't collected his wits enough to really process things as he needed to.

That was the excuse, at least, and he needed the excuse desperately to cover the fact that, in all honesty, he had fled like a coward without really thinking.

Leaving the shop for a while was his best bet, he walked around the town for hours, getting lost twice but not actually noticing. By the time he had calmed down it was nearly dark, the shadows were creeping from tree to tree, building to building, and the warm day was cooling around him.

He stopped his walking, thankful that he recognised where he was and hadn't just wandered off into nowhere, and stood staring at the light disappearing over the trees. The sky was gathering colours, like water swirling with clouds of paint, and looked softer than a normal sky, almost solid, like he could reach out and touch it… he dropped his arm, feeling foolish.

Renji knew that he had to go back to the shop, knew that dinner would be served soon and he was hungry, but he also knew that he would see Urahara there and wasn't sure whether he could face the man without blushing or blurting out something terribly embarrassing. He hoped that the manager wouldn't say anything about what he'd seen, right at the dinner table. He might just go mad and try to get it over with and stab himself with the chopsticks or something.

Then he realised that Urahara _always_ took extra portions with him to his rooms whenever Ichigo visited. Why had he never noticed that before? He never saw the Substitute-Shinigami at dinner so Urahara must take food back for him!

He felt a little stupid at never having noticed it. Before today he'd thought he knew all about his life and the things around him, that Ichigo's visitations were the only mystery left. It astounded him how wrong he now knew himself to be. And yet, he felt oddly resolved about it, like it didn't really matter that he didn't know everything anymore.

Renji slowly realised that he was walking again, and walking in the direction of the shop at that. He wondered if this was his body's way of telling his mind to shut up and deal with it. He had to go back some time after all, this wasn't Soul Society where he could just escape to someone else's rooms and stay with them for a while, he knew few people outside of the shop and no one that he knew would welcome him without questions if he asked to stay with them.

Dinner, as it turned out, was a quiet affair. Ichigo was, for the first time, at the table with them and because Fate has a sense of humour he had to be the one sat directly opposite them. He didn't lift his gaze once throughout the course of dinner, didn't bother trying to wrangle a second helping and escaped as soon as possible without saying anything else or paying attention to whatever stories the brats told.

Closeting himself in his bedroom, Renji went out only once to get a glass of water and, as an afterthought, some sake. It took a few minutes to find the sake in the kitchen because he couldn't find Tessai to ask and when he hunted around the front rooms found them empty. The missing persons might have been in their rooms, or even in the basement, but he didn't look for them. He settled with the fact that it led to no questions when he took the jars and meant that he could get good and pissed without anyone else knowing about it. He felt like he owed his brain that, at the very least.

Vaguely, Renji wondered if Matsumoto was doing just the same thing in Soul Society, managing to make himself grin at the thought. He had been snatched for a session of memory-stealing-killer-hangover-inducing madness many times before and had learned a surprising amount from it, including his own limits. Now he was going to smash those limits into a thousand pieces and wallow in his own drunken hallucinations.

He poured out the first of, he hoped, many cups and took the first careful sip. He was wary of the jugs that were kept in that cupboard, the last time he had taken one believing it to be sake it had turned out to be some strange acid-like substance that eroded the clothing it came into contact with and made him feel as though he'd swallowed Captain Kuchiki's shikai. Needless to say, he read the labels on the shelves much more carefully now.

It was definitely sake. Very nice sake as well, rich and deliciously sharp. He drained that cup, pouring another and wondering distantly if he should just down the entire jar in one go. The idea was trashed quickly enough; he wanted to get drunk, not bring up three days worth of food.

Reclining on his futon finally, he moved the jar nearer to his head, staring at the ceiling and lifting his head to sip at the sake. He decided it would be better to be a gradual drunk, so that the sake he had would last and he wouldn't think too deeply if he sobered up later. Another cup. Renji sighed as he realised that this wouldn't work, he couldn't stay drunk forever, no matter how long he made the alcohol last. Damn.

The sliding door moving was the only thing that alerted him to the fact that anything was wrong. He didn't even bother to move, assuming it was Jinta coming in to bug and laugh at him for being 'a drunken old man'. A slight breeze snuck through the open door, chilling him a little and raising goosepimples over his skin as he shivered. He frowned in aggravation, fighting with sitting up and giving whoever opened the door a piece of his mind. He raised a leg, resting his elbow back to help him sit up and, feeling decidedly put-upon, sighed to himself.

"Will someone close the damn door?" He froze as he tried to sit up, watching as someone loomed over him, a smile on their face as they took the sake from his hand. Renji heard the door slide shut again, felt the tremble of footsteps through the floor as someone else approached him, and then stared up at the two men leaning over him.

"Planning on getting drunk, Renji-san?" Urahara questioned, pressing him to lie back again as the blonde man downed the cup of sake. "Not now, we want you now, but later we'll help you get as drunk as you'd like." It sounded good-natured, but there was a devious glint to the eyes that watched him as he put the cup aside. For a moment Renji thought that this was a dream, had he fallen asleep? Was he _that_ drunk already? Confusion swallowed him as Ichigo glanced over at the blonde man, as if waiting for his permission for something. The other man paused for a second, glancing at Renji in an utterly unnerving way, before nodding.

Despite this exchange, it was Urahara who moved first, leaning his hip against Renji's thigh and moving so that he could pluck the red-head's shirt from his pants. For a split second, Renji didn't know what was going on. Then, it was obvious.

Ichigo kissed him, once, hard on the mouth, as if knowing the protests the other man was about to make. Renji was silenced with this, as the action itself was meant to do it, and he simply blinked up at the pair in quiet mystification. What was happening? Why was it happening? He had no idea, but Ichigo was kissing him again and he was taken off-guard, he could feel Ichigo's tongue exploring his mouth.

He felt hands ghosting over his stomach and tensed the muscles instinctively, wondering at the tickling sensation until he opened one eye and saw a very hungry looking Urahara Kisuke watching with avid appreciation as he kissed his lover. The whole situation was both surreal and bitingly genuine, and even if most of his old questions and cautions had been tossed for the wind to take, he was still, uncharacteristic as it was, quite unsure.

As if sensing the internal debate, Ichigo pulled away and settled back, his leg still touching the red-head's, and glanced over at the blonde voyeur on Renji's other side. Ichigo seemed different, Renji noticed now that his scattered thoughts had collected somewhat after the kisses. His scowl was far lighter than it usually was, though Renji doubted that he could completely rid his expression of it, his lips – _don't think about his lips_, Renji cursed himself vehemently. He was shocked out of his considerations by Urahara grabbing a rather private part of him.

"What the fuck d'you-"

"Renji-san." The soft command silenced him immediately, emphasized as it was by a squeeze of the blonde man's occupied hand. "You should have guessed by now why we're here. You get this one time offer to escape, take it and we go, but otherwise…" He drew out the last word, his eyes glinting suggestively.

Renji found that he didn't care now that he'd been given the opportunity to say no. He couldn't understand how his thoughts had become so suddenly positive about the situation, perhaps it was Urahara's palm that was making those tempting circles at his crotch… either way, he definitely didn't want the two men to leave now. Fuck the sake, this was what he _really_ needed.

He lifted his head to give assent, wondering in that moment about Urahara and why he was so good at these kinds of things, and was met by a mouth. A hot and talented mouth that swallowed his agreement and the groan that followed his surrender of the words.

Renji could hear the rustling of cloth and assumed that it was Ichigo, and he barely flinched when warm hands began to smooth the skin at his waist, slipping his trousers over his hips with next to no effort. With Urahara's mouth busy with his own, his hand on the man's shoulder and aware that the kimono was being steadfastly removed from under his fingers, he knew that the teeth that nipped at his inner thighs were Ichigo's. He felt hands roaming over his legs, Urahara pulling his shirt over his head in the moment that they separated, the blonde man's hand busy with his nipples.

They were quickly a blur of flesh and hair and teeth and tongues, unsure where one person ended and the next began, bodies flush and hot. Renji could feel a glorious mouth on his cock, his hand was buried in the person's hair, tugging roughly, he could feel a mouth roaming his chest, tracing his tattoos with lips and tongue, he knew his other hand was exploring a broad chest. He could hear the sounds they made together, a symphony of moans and panting and names distorted with pleasure.

Then he was on top of Ichigo, between his legs, searching the warm body for spots that tickled and spots that made him arch up, parts of the body that he mapped out in his memory for later perusal as he continued on. He could feel a mouth and sharp teeth moving over his raised back, finding that sensitive spot at his hip so that he gasped, moving further down until he moaned and sucked in his breath, forgetting himself as he pushed into the stomach before him, as he felt the smart tongue probe deeper. He mouthed the quivering flesh before him in apology, tasting the salt there and sucking harder to make a mark that he grinned at before he dove deeper.

The body beneath him rose up when he took the cock into his mouth, he felt a hand catch in his hair, loose, the tie lost somewhere amongst the chaos, which tickled at his shoulders and at Ichigo's thighs. He pushed the hips down, held them so he didn't choke, caressed the flesh there in appreciation of the curses and feral sounds.

A fog of arousal and heat and exultation cluttered his brain, the three bodies always moving, writhing with the dual assault of lovers and sensation. The pressure built and then was left to fade just before the point of no return, the bodies strained and the voices reduced to pleas and guttural sounds, names lost in the fumbling of hands and tumble of minds. No light, and yet everything was visible. Expressions of ecstasy illuminating the dim.

The hips beneath his mouth moved unobtrusively, rolling with his mouth's movements, the hand in his hair tugging, the fingers scraping his scalp pleasantly. Each movement an echo of the activity next to it, the blonde's tongue thrusting deep, Renji's mouth bobbing, diving, drawing, Ichigo's free hand roaming the flesh it could reach.

The inevitable climax built, director of the stage play soon at the rear, effortlessly encouraging his players into the places he wanted, effectively teasing them with pleasure denied, showing them the way he had made for them, luring them with silent promises and building pleasure. Hands and mouth instruments of temptation and instruction, wreaking their havoc and soothing everything that came along after it.

Renji was overwhelmed by the invasion, pushing back and encouraging the owner of the hot skin and muscles that pressed against his back into action, eagerly grabbing at the rewarding flesh within him, surging forward within Ichigo, watching the teen's eyes haze, watching his lips form expletives and names, mindless pleas and curses. A hand looped around Renji, slipping between their bodies, pressure on Ichigo's cock that made him groan louder, hips moving, dragging the others along with him, inviting him deeper and deeper.

They came together, falling like dominoes, crying out together and groping for flesh to anchor them as the whirlwind took them. The ripple of the pinnacle, the convulsions of muscles and gaping of mouths and widening of eyes, the teeth that met his shoulder.

Then the breathing filled the room, inflated like a balloon, expanding and then settling the way it had been before. A moment of motionless rapture, eyes wandering over the unavoidable beauty of the hot bodies, slick with sweat, chests heaving with exertion, surrounding them.

Renji gave an audible grunt when Urahara pulled away from him, both feeling the relief of the cool air hitting his back and the notable craving brought on by the absence. The blonde man 'helped' Ichigo and Renji separate quicker than either could move, tugging them into place on either side of him as he sat back and smiled at them, an infuriatingly _Urahara_ smile that sent them both cursing with almost equal smiles, unable to deny the delicious exhaustion, the aching joints and screaming muscles that somehow felt glorious to their tired minds.

The haze of orgasm took its time to lift.

"Thank god you're so persuasive." Ichigo said hoarsely, wincing at the sting of his throat. He needed a drink and was markedly grateful when Renji passed him the half full glass over Urahara's prone body, nodding and gulping some down immediately.

"It is good isn't it." Urahara chuckled, seeming pleased with himself. And why shouldn't he be? Renji shook his head with some mirth, amazed at how he had been behaving and glad that this had happened to make him realise it. He was no coward. He swallowed and frowned, realising that his throat felt like a camel's armpit – an expression that was Matsumoto's and not his, but which he had been using ever since he first heard her use it. He reached for the glass and sipped the water slowly, glad that it was still so cool.

Once the glass had been replaced on the table, Urahara gathered them together, lying between them with a young man curled up on either side of him. He smiled to himself again and closed his eyes to sleep. "You planned this." Ichigo mumbled against the man's swiftly cooling flesh. Urahara smiled, but said nothing.

In that moment Renji really believed what Ichigo said, about the man being the mastermind behind all of this. Oddly, though, he found that he didn't mind as much as he might have. He didn't think Urahara would admit to it though. It would remain something they always thought and didn't voice, or voiced constantly even, that was never given a decisive answer. The blonde man was good at that, if nothing else.

He knew now that no matter how much he thought he knew about this shop and its owner, there would always be another mystery he couldn't solve: that of the man himself. And, perhaps, that was alright.


End file.
